What is ‘Gluten-Free’?

Welcome back to the European Bakery & Café blog, where we deliver fresh content straight from the oven of our minds… Ok, that metaphor got away from us a little bit, we’ll admit. Well, this time we wanted to give a low down on something that is very much a part of our world now, and that’s celiac disease. No doubt you’ve heard from friends or family about their struggles with gluten and that their diets have needed to change to accommodate that. The rate is about 1 in every 100 – 170 people on average experience this. Much more also experience a non-celiac related gluten sensitivity.

Celiac disease is a reaction to gluten, causing various gastrointestinal problems such as malabsorption, loss of appetite, abdominal distention, amongst a litany of others. Gluten is a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye and others of that family. Essentially, a person’s body is ‘allergic’ in a sense to those proteins, and as little as that found in a tiny 1/8 inch breadcrumb can be enough to cause their body to experience an attack as expressed by those various symptoms.

Gluten-free diets are currently the only known treatment for those with this ailment. By avoiding exposure to gluten, their bodies are able to recover from those autoimmune attacks and associated diseases and then return to their base levels. However, this relief only lasts as long as this diet remains, as any small amount can trigger those symptoms immediately.

Unfortunately for many, our bakery is just about littered with glutens as our pastries and products utilize those traditional methods of baking. This blog post isn’t for those with celiac, though, as they clearly know what it is, but rather the folks who wonder just what their friends and family are suffering from while we all munch down on delicious muffins, croissants, etc. We’re lucky not to have to experience similar distress. Hopefully this very brief overview of what exactly celiac disease and the necessity of a gluten free diet. It’s not some silly fad unfortunately. Folks would much rather be eating yummy cupcakes, to be sure.